


The Autumn Effect

by CrumblingAsh



Series: ScienceBros Week Collection [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Baby Peter Parker, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Dom Bruce, Established Relationship, Exorcist Bruce, Ghost Tony, Human Bruce, Hurt Tony, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Meet-Cute, Minor Character Death, One Shot Collection, Parent Death, Phone Calls & Telephones, Sassy Natasha Romanov, Science Bros Week, Sub Tony, Tony Being Tony, Vampire Tony, mentioned Rumlow/Tony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2018-12-04 13:47:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11556465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: Seven one-shots written to the prompts of the third annual Science Bros Week.1. (Vampire AU) - Bruce’s so far away from being even the basic outline of a main character that it’s actually laughable.2. (BDSM AU) - Bruce is Tony's hired Dom.part 13. (Zombie Apocalypse AU) - The world's gone to hell and he's got one foot in the grave, but Tony isgoingto get back to Bruce.4. (Ghost AU) - Bruce gets called to deal with a haunting in Queens, and meets ghost Tony Stark. Who is holding a baby.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **prompt: light**

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce has seen pretty much every supernatural-based teen drama on cable (except for, ironically enough, _Supernatural_ , but he has plans to catch up on all of _that_ show during summer break before senior year, and it’s not actually a teen drama anyway, so it doesn’t count).

They’re a guilty pleasure, and if spending hours binge-watching _The Vampire Diaries_ helps to suck him from the reality of the way his spine still screams in misery if he moves the wrong way or how his mom flinches every time a man raises his voice in the grocery store, well, that’s his own business and everyone else can just shut the hell up about it.

Whatever. The point is, Bruce has seen pretty much every supernatural-based teen drama on cable, and because of that, he understands how stories like that – how situations like that – work. All of those shows, whether they contain werewolves or vampires or witches (or all of the above) follow the same the same formula – they all play out the same way.

Strange events begin happening around a small town. The main character (an exceptional yet humble human high school student with extremely attractive features) somehow accidentally uncovers the truth of it – _werewolves_ (or witches or vampires, whatever). A dark, mysterious, and highly attractive supernatural newcomer blows into town almost immediately after, and (reluctantly) helps the main character fight against the werewolves (or witches or vampires), and they slowly become friends. Usually, by the end of season one (if not before) the main character goes through some kind of transformation  that makes them supernatural, too, introducing a plot twist to make the viewer rush for season two.

(Said exceptional-humble-attractive main character also usually ends up with dark-mysterious-attractive newcomer. _Romantically._ But that’s an entirely different plot-point) (Sorta).

Bruce is a seventeen-year-old who’s repeating junior year for _reasons_ , and currently has a D in Economics because Mr. Ross is a _dick_. He has a grand total of one friend, Betty (who is the most amazing person to ever walk the planet, but who is also the daughter of _Mr. Ross_ , because the world really does hate him). He’s a mess of chronic pain that he’ll never be rid of and enough scars to keep him out of the school swimming pool, and most of his afternoons are eaten up with physiotherapy and regular therapy appointments alternatively with no room (or desire) for an active social life.

He’s so far away from being even the basic outline of a main character that it’s actually laughable.

 

* * *

 

Bruce meets him on a Monday afternoon, when the sky’s skin has split open for its fourth day of rain (because God intends to _drown_ Ohio – Bruce might actually start praying if only to give thanks), and his body and his emotions are completely drained from a wonderful hour-long round of physio.

He’s not so tired that he can’t walk – he’s had _eighteen months’_ worth of time to become conditioned to functioning like a normal human being after being worked to exhaustion by his therapist. This is nothing new – twice a week he gives himself over to the cruelty of exercises and machines, if only to lessen the chance of his mother finding him on his bedroom floor again, muscles seized and skeleton warped into horrific formations that make her remember what she had “allowed to happen to him” (he hates himself for making her think that at all). It’s not – the day is not – really anything out of the ordinary.

But today … today is a Day. A shitty day where he can just _hear_ his brittle bones grinding against each other with every step that he takes, every injury ever sustained joining together in a macabre orchestra that plays through his entire body. A shitty day where he can _feel_ the eyes of every single person on the street staring at the whip-like scars around his body, the ones that are perfectly covered up by his clothes. Where not even the _sound_ of his own breathing, burning from the exercises but growing rapid from his thoughts, can cover up his father’s voice slithering through his head, sneering _you’re the reason everything is fucking up!_ in an unrelenting loop that has his shoes sinking into sticky sludge even though the halls of the rehab center are lined with shiny white tile.

Betty is waiting for him in the parking lot, Jeep running with the heat turned up and the latest Jenna and Julien Podcast cued up on her phone to be listened to on the way back to his house. She’ll get him arranged on the couch with too many pillows, force him to take his pills and drain an entire glass of water, and then they’ll pretend to focus on their homework until his mom comes home from work to make dinner.

And abruptly, he hates it. He fucking **hates it**.

Betty shouldn’t be waiting to drive him home – he should be able to drive _himself_. Betty shouldn’t need to find something to take his mind off of things, his mind shouldn’t be _fucked up_. His mom shouldn’t have to make dinner after she gets home, she works hard with long hours to support them, he should be able to _fucking make dinner_ –

He doesn’t realize he’s changed course from walking out the exit to walking into the bathroom until his palm is slapping violently enough against the mirror over the sink to crack it.

 _“Fuck!”_ He rages at the outline of his worthless reflection, snarling at the brown eyes that burn back at him.

“You alright, kid?”

The rage dissipates as suddenly as it had appeared, a wave of cool mortification sweeping through his limbs as the reflection of a man with a concerned expression appears in the mirror behind his own. Bruce pulls his hand away from the mirror on reflex, can’t hold back the flinch as he hears the broken glass clink at the shift.

_You’re the reason everything is fucking up!_

“Sorry.” The word wakes him up – it’s hoarse, sounds dry – it’s coming from his own mouth _God, Banner_. He shakes his head a little and tries to swallow down the way his heart is thudding in his chest as he turns around to offer the stranger the best fake smile he can manage _Breathe_. “Sorry about that-.”

But the man isn’t looking at his face anymore. His eyes have drifted down to Bruce’s hand, and automatically, his own eyes do the same.

A thin trail of blood is quickly building a triumphant line along his palm.

In the television shows, there’s usually some sort of buildup between the ‘bad guy’ revelation and the attack that follows – a few seconds for the audience to catch on to the change, for the suspense to rise up, for the dread to set in. Maybe it’s a few witty lines the bad guy says, maybe it’s just a couple of seconds of the camera focusing on the dawning horror on the good guy’s face. Whatever. There’s just usually something that gives that sliver of time.

In real life, there’s _nothing._

Bruce barely has a chance to look back up before the guy is grabbing him, a hand over his mouth to muffle Bruce’s automatic yell – it’s only a quick movement born of fear-forced habit that has him shifting his weight just enough that his hip takes the hit instead of his back as the man slams him back against the sink, but the eruption of pain doesn’t make him (never has) close his eyes, and so he _sees_ the man’s face shift, _sees_ the white dagger-like teeth that slide out from under his top lip.

Vampire.

It’s a _vampire_.

His lungs seize, his body freezing as the fangs graze sharply over his neck –

_You’re the reason everything is fucking up!_

-and then it’s just _gone_.

Bruce doesn’t really register the sight of yet another man in the bathroom – doesn’t see the new guy overpowering the other one, doesn’t really hear what he’s saying.

But he does catch the sounds of a fight, of fists hitting flesh and the unwelcome whines of received pain, sees the fuzzy images of a body looming over another, of limbs flailing violently, and –

 

_he’s on the floor in the kitchen, mouth hot with blood, twisted in a way that should be uncomfortable but something’s wrong –_

_his  mom is screaming at his dad – she’s hitting his dad, she never hits his dad, she’s always so scared –_

“Hey, he- oh my **God** , you’re-”

_-his dad has her by the shoulders, shaking her a little. he’s … pleading with her, begging her, telling her everything will be fine if they just let him die_

“Jesus, I can’t –listen. Li … big guy, you need to help me …”

_-they should. she should._

_but she’s screaming again._

“You need to br … breathe for me, okay? Can you…”

 

_-now his dad is shaking her hard. he’s angry. Bruce tries to get up, he does, but can’t, his legs are flickering like a lightbulb between feeling and nothing at all-_

“I’m shit at stopping panic attacks – can’t even … my own. But I’m here, feel me? I’m right … **breathe**.”

 

_-he’s going to kill her, he’s going-_

“Uh, okay, this is going to be weird as hell, not gonna lie, please don’t hate me.”

 

_-neighbors are pounding on the door_

_copper on his tongue-_

“Hey.” There’s a burst, small and concentrated, of copper on his tongue – he immediately gags at the alarm from memory, but a hand catches his shoulder firmly and holds him up. “Easy, easy. Blood’s a cheap trick, I know it, sorry, but at least you’re breathing normally now, right?”

His mind is heavy, hard to sift through – he’s not in the kitchen in the old house, no one’s screaming, his parents aren’t here – and even as his eyes begin to return to focus, it’s like he’s trying to see through steam-fogged glass. But there’s an odd warmth in his throat that tickles, and his hip’s tingling with a sensation that is _not_ the pain it should be, and someone is touching him. Bruce blinks hard to try and get his brain to kick back into gear, this isn’t the time to being sinking right now, dammit-

-there’s a decapitated body slouching against the now blood-splattered bathroom wall, and the head of the man – the _vampire_ that had attacked him is still _wobbling_ slightly from side to side on the floor at its feet, unnaturally blue eyes wide and unseeing -

“No, come on, don’t look at that,” the other voice urges, and then, sharply when Bruce keeps _staring at the body, what the fuck_ , “ **look at me**.”

And just like that, Bruce’s attention is instantly focused solely on the person who’s touching him.

A man – no, a guy around his age, maybe a year older, who’s coated in enough blood that Bruce can easily identify it even on the black band tee he’s wearing, a splash of it on his face. He’s staring, brown eyes alight with an emotion that’s almost reminiscent of how his father used to look right before he’d decide Bruce was _beyond redemption_ -

“You’re alright,” the guy says firmly, and the words just miraculously slice through the thought. “You’re … Damn.” He’s clutching Bruce’s shoulder like he thinks Bruce is going to run, his other hand hovering alongside Bruce’s face, thumb just shy of touching his lips. “ _Damn._ I can’t believe – I didn’t know - I wish I had time to talk with you. I don’t want to want to let you go. This isn’t fair. But we can’t, not right now, I can’t – it’s not safe for you here right now. I’ll find you, later. Alright? I promise. I’m gonna find you again. But right now _you can’t be here_.” The stranger licks at his lips with a frustrated sound, and Bruce can’t help but break eye contact to follow the new motion.

And catches a glimmer of a fang.

“ _Vampire_.” It escapes his mouth without permission, and fear again blooms in his chest.

The guy’s eyes flash the same color blue as the ones in the head on the floor, and his grip tightens.

“ **Listen to me**.” Again, Bruce’s attention is immediately caught, the fear fading away as if it hadn’t even been there. “I’ll apologize for this later, I swear, but right now, **you’re going to do exactly as I say**.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce doesn’t know how he gets home.

He doesn’t remember leaving the bathroom, let alone the rehab center, sure as hell doesn’t know how he’s fifteen miles away from it and back in his house.

One minute, he’s on the floor in the bathroom, and the next, he’s standing on his front porch, phone in hand, watching as Betty’s Jeep comes racing up the road.

The ache in his back is beginning to grow to actual body-freezing agony, the adrenaline that had stopped it after therapy now completely gone – he needs his pills, and he’ll probably snatch up a Percocet too, because he’s for fucking sure overdone it and he’s not risking his mom seeing him if he has – but his hip still doesn’t hurt. There’s no cut on his palm anymore.

The Jeep screeches to a crunching halt, kicking up dirt as Betty swings open the door and flies out, running straight toward him.

“What _happened_?” She’s demanding as she runs; he feels unsteady with relief at the sight of her. She always asks the best questions – yes, Banner, what happened? “Where were you – how’d you get home – _is that blood_? Was it your dad? Should I call Officer Barnes?”

She reaches for his neck as soon as she gets to him, but he’s lost whatever will he’s held over his nerves through whateverthehellhappened, and he wraps her in a hug the second she’s close. He, in theory, really just wants to sit down, but –

Even though she’s careful as always, she doesn’t hesitate to hug him back.

_You’re going to do exactly as I say_

“I’ll kill him,” Betty is swearing into his chest, and he almost laughs at the threat, except he’s still seeing bodyless heads every time he so much as blinks. “Tell me where he is, Bruce, and I’ll rip his spine out-.”

His head is trying to swim again. If he manages to get inside without collapsing it’ll be a miracle.

“No. It wasn’t my dad – he’s not here. I’m okay, Betty, it wasn’t him.” She pulls back, hands set supportively along his aching sides, and frowns.

“Then what happened?”

Yes, Banner, what happened?

_I’m gonna find you again._

Bruce tells her everything.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt: "pending**

* * *

 

 

Bruce doesn’t use his paychecks to invest in new belts or thinner whips. The sharpest objects he keeps in his worn out backpack are a set of needles and one pocket knife, all of which he cleans thoroughly and sterilizes every night, used or not. He owns nothing sharper, nothing barbed, nothing that brings lasting damage – there’s an emergency flogger at the bottom of the pack for when someone new needs a bit more, somewhat heavy and adequately padded, but ideally, any bruises left come from his own hands.

There are people who need pain, whether to get off or to be comforted or to help them in finding the ground again, and he knows that. He’s witnessed those kinds of sessions, has never felt anything but genuine contentment and happiness for those people at seeing the peace overwhelming their faces after those scenes.

But he’s not someone who can deliver that. Tearing a person to euphoria drops him into a deep, uncovered grave – the only time he’d tried, he’d fallen so far down that another Dom had needed to step in to care for the submissive while Bruce had all but drowned himself in the backroom’s shower. He’d taken no joy in hurt that woman, hadn’t been able to get out of his own head enough to focus on her needs, her pleasure. It had been irresponsible – he’d been dangerous – it could have ended so badly for her.

(He’d almost quit the scene that night. Had been at the edge of throwing it all into the dumpster and finding some place to hide himself from the world. But his self-loathing had been strong enough to keep him crushed to his bed, unwilling to let him move for _days_ )

Bruce can’t do hard, heavy pain. He can slice thin, bloody lines into a submissive’s back with his knife to release, insert the needles to pull – he can grip and hold and spank with enough power to leave intentional bruising, but he can’t beat, he can’t degrade. Nothing brings him more satisfaction than a submissive willingly bowing under his gentle orders and melting under the resulting praise; lifting them into subspace and staying with them while they float.

He’s not the sort of Dominant the people walk into Triskelion’s club expecting or really looking to find, but he is the sort that people end up approaching once they realize he’s there. It’s enough for the higher-ups to keep him on the payroll, even if he’s not exactly advertised on their website, which is fine – he knows he’s not something that would draw in a paying crowd. He’s nothing like Rumlow or Rollins or Ward.

Which is why he’s surprised when the high-end contract is brought to him instead of one of them.

 

* * *

 

 

A red flag on any contract is a distinct lack of hard limits.

An automatic of one is a notation put inside of it stating ‘ _no safewords necessary_ ’.

At least for Bruce.

“You know I’m not going to take this.” Bruce can’t keep the bewilderment out of his voice as he waves the contract in his hand carelessly in Pietro’s face. It whistles through the air as he shakes it.

Pietro winces, expression somewhere between sheepish and stubborn. “It’s worth three hundred k?”

The number only deepens Bruce’s frown, and he scoffs. “Probably a joke.” Or a desperate offer from someone who wants to be beaten and humiliated without having video of it plastered all over YouTube. The contract itself is only a page long, barely anything more than a promised free-for-all to the Dominant, but the non-disclosure agreement that had arrived with it is _five_ pages. “I don’t take clients like this, Pietro, you _know_ that. I don’t play these sorts of game, especially not with someone new to the lifestyle.” He gives the contract another wave, a little more vicious than the last. “Give this to someone else.”

“Then it will go to Rumlow.”

Bruce freezes, arm still in the air, and though Pietro swallows nervously, the sheepishness is gone from his face.

“The client isn’t new,” he continues. “Not really. We’ve gotten a contract from him before, about a month ago, and Rumlow got it. I don’t know the exact details of what happened during their time, of course, but Rumlow bragged about it for days afterward – said what a little bitch the guy was, how he begged from Rumlow to hurt him as much as Rumlow wanted. He still talks about the guy every now and then, about wanting to see how long he can make him scream before he cries. Asks a few times a week if another contract has shown up. I should be giving it to him right now. I just … I just thought you might be better.”

Bruce has never watched a session of Rumlow’s, but he’s seen the results of them. Subs stumbling up the stairs from the club’s darkened basement, sometimes clothed and a lot of times not, all littered with dark bruises and busted lips wet with their blood, visibly shaking with tears drying on their faces. Always looking a little confused, a little scared. Rumlow doesn’t do aftercare, it’s part of his shtick that attracts a lot of cliental – he take them in and breaks them down and kicks them out with a bellowing, self-satisfied laugh. He’d gleefully do it for a fraction of the money this contract is worth, but he would definitely go hysterically rabid on someone desperate enough to offer this much money for it.

Bruce’s fingers curl hotly into his palm, crinkling the contract, and he bites out the words before he can talk himself out of them, again.

“Granted, the payment is pending until after the contract is up,” Pietro carries on. “And we’re not technically allowed to speak the client’s name or about the client in name at all-.”

“I’ll take it,” Bruce cuts off, and the younger man immediately smiles. “Where am I going?”

 

* * *

 

Even from the outside, the motel looks used and dirty, treated with too much blame and bitterness and not enough affection, made to be a hollow husk of unwanted shelter and nothing more. It reeks of nicotine various poorly-cleaned bodily fluids, the parking lot filled

The man standing outside of the room Bruce is supposed to go into is built large and scowling violently as he leans against the wall beside the door. His arms are crossed over his chest defensively, a cigarette sitting a little too straight between his fingers. He’s dressed below casual, white shirt stained dark with grease and pants ill-fitting, and he fits right into the motel setting. But his gaze cuts immediately to Bruce once he close enough, and the critically suspicious look the man coats him with is a dead giveaway. Bodyguard.

He’s in the right place then.

Bruce doesn’t say anything as he pulls the NDA from his pocket, passing it over along with his employee ID and driver’s license, as requested when Pietro had called in the confirmation of the session. The man gives him one more hard look before accepting them with a begrudging grunt, and then turns his scrutinizing toward them. Bruce feels a flare of pleasure at the protective cautiousness.

“You’re not the same guy they sent last time,” the man barks out lowly, head whipping back up. His are eyes are still narrowed, and they dart quickly to the backpack hanging from Bruce’s shoulder, and then back.

“No I’m not,” Bruce agrees easily. “Is that a problem?”

The eyes twitch. “… He had a smug little bastard face. I didn’t like him. You don’t have a smug little bastard face.” Another twitch. “But I still don’t like you.”

Another flare of pleasure warms his chest, and Bruce bites at his cheeks to contain his answering smile. “That’s okay.” The man just frowns at him more for the allowance, and shoots another glance at his backpack. “Do you need to look in my bag?” He offers. “I understand if you do.”

But surprisingly, the man’s intimidating scowl crumbles abruptly away at the suggestion. “I’m not allowed to look in any bags or boxes or suitcases or trunks that you may bring with you.” He sounds upset and angry, but Bruce blinks once and the man’s expression of intimidation is back again. “But I’m going to be right over there the entire time you’re here. Going to park _right by your car_. You’re not going to be able to go _anywhere_ without me knowing about it.” He stretches his hand out toward Bruce and shakes the IDs in his face. “And I’m taking these with me! So don’t think I won’t know your face to track you down if you do something really stupid, _Mr. Banner_.”

The man drops his cigarette without taking a drag of it, smashing it into the cement with clear relish as he steps toward the parking lot. “Oh. Door’s unlocked,” he throws casually over his shoulder like an afterthought.

Bruce, facing the door, doesn’t hold back his grin this time.

 

* * *

 

 

But it falls away as soon as he steps inside of the room.

He’d been prepared to be greeted by an eager, somewhat nervous sub. He’d been ready to immediately launch into a lecture about safewords and contracts, ready to try to set up something a little more concrete before any clothing came off, if any clothing came off. And if the client hadn’t wanted to agree to Bruce’s terms for a scene, he’d been ready to at least warn them off of Rumlow for future appointments.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was the sight of _Tony Stark_ , head down and kneeling on the floor by the bed, naked and shivering and exposed under every light in the room, tiny hitching breaths barely audible under the roar of the ancient air conditioner intentionally pumping icy air into the room.

Bruce’s bag slid from his arm and smacked the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 won't be until chapter 5 - sorry! That's just the prompt it works with, lol.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt: rush**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~I haven't been gone for a year what are you saying~~ sorry.

* * *

 

 

_“Hey, it’s Bruce, sorry I missed your call-_

_No he’s not! Especially if this is his dad, he didn’t answer on purpose, because fuck you, asshole-_

_Tony, dammit, now I have to record the message again-_

_You really don’t, I think it sounds just fine-_

_Baby, I love you, but can you please be quiet for just ten secon- Tony, give my phone back!-_

_Leave your message and maybe he’ll call you back, bye!”_

 

Curled up in a dirty corner of some unnamed building that had been forgotten long before the end of the world, arm wrapped protectively around ribs that have been threatening to snap in half for the better part of three days now, Tony wheezes out a pathetic laugh to the message singing in his ear. His dry, unwashed mouth tastes like spoiled metal, he’s coated in grime and sweat and old blood that mostly isn’t his, and exhaustion is beginning to eat at him in a way that makes his knees weaker than the hunger does.

But the grip he has on his phone is stubbornly solid, near desperate, and though it causes his chest a burning jolt of sharp pain, he clears his throat as the voicemail beeps.

“Hey big guy, me again,” he murmurs into the device, strangling his breath in his chest to keep the words from tripping into a cough that’ll probably kill him. “Found myself a safe … _ish_ place to stay for the night. It’s got a roof, four walls that aren’t broken – can’t really get the main door to shut all the way, but that really just means I managed to get myself a room with a good view. And you know how hard rooms with good views are to find in western Ohio, and think, I didn’t even have to pay for this one. Yay me.”

He takes a deep breath and immediately hates the silence that swarms in to surround him.

Silence means you can hear things, sure, like the dragging of feet that don’t quite remember how to work and the sharp clacking of decaying teeth coming together in disgusting, drooling hunger, and that’s all great. Very helpful. But it also means that you’re _not_ hearing things – things that should just always _be_ there, like growling car engines and stupid custom ringtones going off and the humming of forever-in-use electricity, hell, even the sounds of people _breathing_ –

“Yeah, so, update on me before my time runs out.” His rush to continue speaking doesn’t stop how hard his heart is hammering in his abused chest. “Day thirteen. STARK phones are obviously still working, so I guess that means Howard’s still alive, good for him. Um, still haven’t found anything good to wrap my ribs with, but I’ve been sticking far enough off-road that I haven’t really run into anything much that I can’t avoid. Which is, like, double-awesome, because the threading in these stupid shoes is about to give out – what the hell was I thinking grabbing _Converse?_ I grabbed _Converse shoes_ , this is why I should never go emergency-shopping without you, big g-.”

For a second, the dryness inside of his mouth is overwhelming, the silence deafeningly suffocating, the agony of his fragile ribs no longer screaming because, for just that second, he stops breathing.

“I’m ten miles outside of some place called Beavercreek.” He rasps the information into the receiver. “Which, all jokes withheld _you’re_ _welcome_ , is apparently less than ten miles outside of Dayton, which, if my _astounding_ luck continues to hold, is where you’ll still be. Alive and unscathed, so that I can guiltlessly lecture you on why you should always charge your cellular device in the event of a global emergency. Especially a _STARK_ cellular device, Jesus.”

The moon that hangs in the sky is only half-visible to the world below it, but even that half manages to bring enough light to cast shadows in the night – he knows that the ones he can see moving on the floor of the building are just of the leaves swaying in the wind. But combined with the indifferent quiet –

He flinches.

“You better fucking be there, Bruce.”

 

* * *

 

“ _No he’s not! Especially if this is his dad, he didn’t answer on purpose, because fuck you, asshole-_

_Tony, dammit, now I have to record the message again-_

_You really don’t, I think it sounds just fine-_

_Baby, I love you, but can you please be quiet for just ten secon- Tony, give my phone back!-_

_Leave your message and maybe he’ll call you back, bye!”_

 

“I think, when I finally get back, that we need to take a moment together to appreciate the fact that we met on a _The Walking Dead Is Unrealistic Garbage_ message board.”

The sky is littered with a growing abundance of clouds that all float along the slightly darker half of the grayscale, the wind today a little more insistent than the usual playful bursts it’s been wheezing out lately. It’s an obvious promise of rain, possibly even a taunting tease of a thunderstorm – both make his steps heavy with the dread that fills his stomach.

“Just out of curiosity – seriously, this is a thought born of pure boredom that can only come from taking long, long walks through the middle of nowhere, apocalypse not withstanding – what are the odds that, if I choose to hop into one of these little storm cellar things that are just laying around, that it’ll be filled with zombies?” He licks his lips and they stay dry. “Or, rather, what are the odds that they’ll be filled with _too_ _many_ zombies for me to take on by myself?”

There _aren’t_ any storm cellars just laying around – not any that Tony can see, at any rate. His path is somewhere between the highway and the tiny towns that line it – houses that he can barely make out off in the distance on one side, a stretch of asphalt filled with the silence of dead and (hopefully) abandoned cars on the other. Visually as empty as he’s always complained about Ohio being.

“Yeah,” he huffs into the phone on a laugh that isn’t laughter. “Not in my favor, right? I thought the same. Maybe I’ll just stay out, keep walking, experience my first potentially-deadly Ohio thunderstorm head-on, meet a tornado face-to-face, that’ll be a good time. _Or_ maybe I’ll find a barn to hide out in for a bit. That’s what they did on _The Walking Dead_ , remember? Found a barn to hide from a tornado? And we laughed about it?”

A roll of thunder, distant enough not to sting his nerves, growls along the gloomy sky in soft warning, and his muscles involuntarily tremble in response.

“Update time. It’s day fourteen. I have two beef jerky sticks and one bottle of water left, though apparently it’s going to rain, so maybe I can get another half-bottle out of that.” His shoe catches on a patch of ground uneven from the rest, and he bites back the grunt of pain in his throat to keep it from the voicemail. “I’m about five miles outside of Beavercreek – I can maybe get another two or three in before it gets dark-.”

A splat of water splashes suddenly against his cheek, followed almost immediately by another on his hand. Around him, the ground begins to rapidly grow a collection of gleaming wet dots.

Tony sucks in a breath that’s more numbing weariness than oxygen, ignoring that the sudden build of wetness in his eyes is warmer than the rain on his skin.

“Or maybe not.”

 

* * *

 

_Tony, dammit, now I have to record the message again-_

_You really don’t, I think it sounds just fine-_

_Baby, I love you, but can you please be quiet for just ten secon- Tony, give my phone back!-_

_Leave your message and maybe he’ll call you back, bye!”_

 

Tony’s uncovered skin pebbles with endless goosebumps chased into existence by the blowing chill that had been brought in by last night’s thunderstorm. The sky is still swallowed by the ever-mourning clouds, no rays of sunlight allowed free to warm his body or help dry his cold damp clothes.

“I have good news and bad news in this day fifteen update. Good news first. I found a treehouse to hide from the storm in and to sleep in yesterday, and didn’t get struck by lightning. I mean, the thing was old and the wood was disturbingly soft and riddled with holes, so more rain got in than was kept out and I got soaked, but, I digress, I did _not_ get electrocuted.”

Around him, the world is a little more destroyed than it had already been. Dozens of jaggedly broken branches litter and pierce the ground like an army’s aimlessly-fired arrows, more than a few younger trees bent over or completely snapped and left to slowly die on the battered grass.

Beneath one of them, legs smashed and completely useless, a young woman desperately reaches out toward him, a snarl on her ripped-open face and nothing but inhuman hunger in her glazed eyes.

He passes by her without a second glance.

“Bad news is, I lost my left shoe.”

 

* * *

 

“ _You really don’t, I think it sounds just fine-_

_Baby, I love you, but can you please be quiet for just ten secon- Tony, give my phone back!-_

_Leave your message and maybe he’ll call you back, bye!”_

 

Beavercreek is not the small born-and-bred hick town Tony had been expecting.

“In my defense, it’s called _Beaver. Creek_ ,” he hisses into the phone, pressing his body as close to the brick of the building he’s hiding by as he can, ignoring the way every bone and muscle protests the movement. He can _hear_ the dragging footsteps of the gangly, breaking-down teenager moving just across the street, the exaggerated sniffing of the large, drooling man that had been shuffling along beside him – the rattling, fought-for breaths of at least twenty others who had just been absently standing in the middle of the _goddamn street_ like they had just been _waiting_ for him to stupidly waltz right in the way he had. “Why would I think it’s an _actual_ city where _actual_ people would want to _actually live_?”

Because of course it’s a city – a city with a _not_ insignificant population that had apparently all conglomerated in the streets and just _let_ themselves become infected and turned into zombies.

_Of course it is._

A tickle of uneasy breath dances inside of his throat in the opposite rhythm of the sweat that trickles down from his hairline. The sight of long-legged, haphazardly staggering shadows on the walls of the surrounding buildings makes him want to scream and vomit and laugh, all at the same time, until his body just busts itself apart and he somehow magically ends up in a place that’s _not. Here_.

His stomach rolls through a deadened, numbing wave of empty nausea. “I’m so close.” The words hit the receiver, twisting in the disbelief that bubbles up his back. “I’m _so close_ , Bruce. I _can’t_ -.”

He can’t go backwards, not after everything, not when he’s this close. He doesn’t have anything _left_ to do it again, he’ll fall before he makes it to the edge of this damn place, and his last steps will be _away_ from Bruce –

There’s a sudden, loud groan that crackles in low, recognizable pain, followed a hesitating second later by the sharply wet, echoing snap of splitting bone – one of the shadows slips down the building’s wall, brushing along the side of a parked car before disappearing completely. Another shadow stumbles immediately down after it to the grotesque soundtrack of selfishly interested hunger, but Tony’s eyes don’t follow it.

Barely visible even through the cloud-shrouded rays of the sun, a blue light blinks in weakened warning along the dashboard of the car. It flickers in his vision like a trick born of dehydration, but his bones begin to tingle in sickening anticipation.

 “… This is day sixteen.” The edging around the entrance of the building is composed of a bed of smooth, plump river rocks. If he’s quick enough, if he can throw them hard enough, if the car’s alarm has enough life left within itself to wail louder than the dead around it – “And I have a really bad idea that you’re going to hate, Bruce.”

 

* * *

 

_Baby, I love you, but can you please be quiet for just ten secon- Tony, give my phone back!-_

_Leave your message and maybe he’ll call you back, bye!”_

 

 

“Do you remember your mom?”

Rain pecks at Tony’s battered skin, an alternating mixture of hot and cold in each droplet that makes the bruises on his aching head throb. His body harshly strums the strings of his veins, his ribs sing violently off-key on each breath, and his sight hazes red if he doesn’t keep the rain out of his eyes.

“You talk about her all the time – talk about her afterschool cookies and Christmas mornings and working on Science Fair projects in your room so your dad wouldn’t see them. Sometimes you talk about her smile, or how much you miss her laugh, but you don’t say what her laugh sounded like, or how she smelled when she hugged you, or … fuck, I don’t know, when the last time she told you that she loved you was and if you said it back.”

He’s _heavy_. His backpack is gone, tangled in the twisted arm of the twitching dead teenager back in the streets of Beaver Creek, but his shoulders are pierced by the burning claws of some unseen weight. He’s loose inside of his own body, blood spilling forth freely from gashes and holes to touch his skin and kiss the grass below – it’s something unconscious and foreign that’s leading his feet forward. If he steps wrong, he might just snap in half.

“Do you just forget those kind of things? Do you forget that her polite laughter sounded like forks tapping lightly on glass in call for a toast, but her private laugh was more rough, like a quiet mouse’s feet scratching along your carpet floor because she had been taught not to let people hear it? Do you forget that she only ever smelled like _Starkaria Elegance #2_ when she was in an evening gown but smelled like fresh cotton and beach sand if she stayed home for more than a day at a time? Do you forget how it felt to have her hug you, or how tight she would squeeze you, or how much you wanted to just burrow into her and stay there forever because it just felt so safe?” His throat burns as he clears it, and red slips into his eyes with the rain. “Is that a feeling you can replicate, do you think? Theoretically, if you built a set of hugging robot arms, do you think you could reproduce the same pressure as a Mom-hug? There’s probably not a market for it now, with the whole zombie-apocalypse-the-world-as-we-know-it-is-ending thing … or maybe there is, if you think about it, I’m sure other moms have-.”

Tony stops himself.

Dusk is rapidly eating up what little sunlight has managed to touch the world through the rain, but if he squints and blinks rapidly enough, he can make out the blurry edges of Dayton’s stout skyline. It floats in front of him like an unfinished finish line at the end of a grueling marathon, a mirage pulled from the burning muscles of his weakened and screaming body, but maybe the water that pools gluttonously in his dry mouth at the presence of it is just a stream of rain slipping in past his lips.

“…I hate you for not coming with us.”

The words come out of his mouth on their own, almost too soft for even him to hear. His free hand twitches – in shock, in denial, in horror that he would dare say something like that to _Bruce_ – but it doesn’t move up to snatch the phone away from the other, and the words keep coming. “I _hate you_ for not being there with me then and not being here with me now. Why _the fuck_ am _I_ the one walking across this goddamn state to get to _you_? Why aren’t _you_ coming to _me_? Where the hell are _you_? This is day seventeen – fucking _seventeen days_ , Bruce, do you know that? I’ve been counting them down to you every single time I’ve called, has the passing time gotten through to you? Because it’s been a hell of a lot longer than those three days. Remember that? _‘Three days, Tony, and then you’ll be back here with me in our shitty apartment and we’ll have to be_ quiet _because the spare room will be inhabited by your **mother** ’_-.”

The sob slices free from his chest like the blistering waves of an atomic bomb, heat and spit and what feels like bits of shrapnel born of his exploding ribs flying out of his mouth on the note of a dying battle cry.

Everything seems to collapse into him instantaneously, silence and _too much pressure_ squeezing and escaping him in implosion. There’s no rain,

no blood,

 

no ground beneath his feet – it’s just him,

 

a quickly-building ringing in his ears,

 

no oxygen,

 

no _pain_ ,

 

 

no **_breathing_**

 

 

 

his chest seizes viciously in a tsunami of hysteria that locks up his body

 

 

and he’s floating in a sickening twist of unwarranted relief

 

ready to leave

 

wanting to leave

 

there’s nothing

 

he’s blind, alone, empty, untethered –

 

 

the phone slips against the wet skin of his hand in an effort to fall away

 

 

 

Breath rushes back into Tony’s body like a starburst, and his fingers tighten around the phone in denying rage.

 

His eyes snap open.

 

 

 

He’s on the ground, his knees sinking into the mud, rain ruining his eyes as it uses him as a slide to reach the dirt. The pain leeches back in slowly, as if it knows it’s unwelcome but needs the protection of his body from the coldness of the world – his chest is heaving shallow breaths between hiccups of his grief, his face panicking under slithering trails of strange hot wetness and-

“ _It’s not fair_ ,” he gets out. His eyes sharpen enough through the rain to separate the mud from the chunks of green, the chunks of green into grass, the grass into individual clovers and blades. The sound of rolling thunder purrs underneath the ringing in his ears like a wave to sweep it away. His breath is leaving his body in faint, pitiful whistles.

Salt bites chidingly at his tongue – he’s crying, tears falling heavier than the rain, more sobs trying to bubble up inside of his uneven breathing – he can hear them catching in his throat.

“It’s not _fair_. This was supposed to be it. Our stupid happy ending. Three _days_ , Bruce, that was it, and then it was all going to come together. But now it’s been _seventeen_ days and the world’s apparently literally _ending_ and you’re not here and she’s _gone_.” His chest sparks with a punch of pain that knocks the wind right back out of him, and he barely catches himself from collapsing completely into the dirt. The mud envelopes his fingers in solemn ending support. “She’s dead, Bruce.” It’s a whimper. “You’re not here, and she’s dead. And I did it.

 

Bruce, I _killed my mom_.”

 

* * *

 

_“Leave your message and maybe he’ll call you back, bye!”_

 

“It’s still day seventeen. I mean, it might … be eighteen now, I don’t have a … watch, but I haven’t slept yet, so it’s … still seventeen. I’m – I found a car to sleep in. I … know, I know. But there was nothing … else. Found some shoes in it. And I won’t mention the … bloated dead body in the front seat, you’re … welcome.”

The cushioned leather underneath Tony’s body, damp from his rain-soaked clothes, is a strange sort of warm. But he’s shivering anyway, endless trains of tremors trailing through his seizing arms and calves and jerking at his wrists and knees even as he tries to keep them still, pushing jaw-locking stops between his words as they slip through his lips. His teeth clench of their own accord in the same rhythm, and occasionally his head smacks against the door handle as his body unconsciously attempts to somehow get away from the sensation, but there are no new hurts. A deep exhaustion that’s flooding his veins and filling his bones with lead, sure, but no new hurts.

… or maybe by now everything hurts.

There’s too much grieving, gut-rot guilt in his lungs to care enough to tell.

“I don’t hate you,” he breathes. Rain dots steadily along the windows, and his chest is heavy. “You didn’t … _deserve that_. I’m so fucking sorry, it wasn’t … even true. I didn’t mean it, Bruce, I love … _love you so damn much_.”

The driver’s side windows are both cracked open to let the odor of the decaying body cover up the scent of his living one that’s building up inside of the car, but even with that small amount of rain-born breeze coming through, stale warmth still bears down on him like a fallen boulder, teasingly snagging at his thickening tongue and licking at his increasingly heavy eyelids. He sees flashes of warm green eyes more than he sees glimpses of blonde hair every time a blink lasts too long, and it’s almost enough to make him want to slip into slumber in hopes of catching them in a long dream.

“I love you,” he says again. “I … love you. Don’t come to me, alright? I’m … on Jefferson Street. I’m so close. Don’t … come. I can get to you, I can, just … be there, Bruce. Please just be there-.”

A low, blunt beep abruptly hits his ear, followed immediately by an equally blunt female voice.

“Call lost.”

Suddenly, Tony is cold.

 

* * *

 

 

_“Hey, it’s Bruce, sorry I missed your call-_

_No he’s not! Especially if this is his dad, he didn’t answer on purpose, because fuck you, asshole-_

_Tony, dammit, now I have to record the message again-_

_You really don’t, I think it sounds just fine-_

_Baby, I love you_

“Call lost.”

 

* * *

 

 

_“Hey, it’s Bruce, sorry I missed your call-_

_No he’s not! Especially if this is his dad, he didn’t answer on purpose, because fuck you, asshole-_

_Tony, dammit_

“Call lost.”

 

* * *

 

 

_“Hey, it’s Bruce, sorry_

“Call lost.”

 

* * *

 

 

_“We’re sorry, but STARK Cellular is currently experiencing technical difficulties. We apologize for any inconvenience. We are working quickly and diligently on a solution. Please do not call customer service unless your service has been down for over twenty-four hours. Thank you, and have a wonderful day.”_

 

* * *

 

 

_“We’re sorry, but Stark Cellular is currently experiencing technical difficulties. We apologize for any inconvenience. We are working quickly and diligently on a solution. Please do not call –“_

 

* * *

 

_“We’re sorry, but Stark Cellular is currently experiencing technical difficulties. We apologize -.”_

 

* * *

 

 

The phone is a dead, empty weight in his hand.

It still lights up whenever he pushes in on the home button, but he’s really holding nothing more than a warm, lifeless corpse. There’s no service. The condescending, insincere apology message from before doesn’t hiss in his ear anymore when he tries to dial through – there’s just a dull disconnect tone that echoes with undertaker finality with every attempt. STARK Cellular is down, the connection wiped away from existence.

Which means Howard is either dead or staggering around Manhattan as a well-dressed, drooling zombie, and no more of Tony’s calls can get through to Bruce’s phone.

Tony knows this – he _knows_ this.

“Please. Come on, come… on _please_ god _dammit_.”

But he doesn’t let the phone go. Doesn’t put it in his pocket like he has every day before to keep it close, keep it safe from the still-falling rain. He holds it so tightly that his fingers lock up in the position, that his ear is beginning to burn from the heat of the bright screen, his thumb blindly pressing _end_ and _redial_ over and over again, aching to hear something other than the fucking dead-end tone that keeps rolling through the speaker.

“ _Please_.”

Between his stupid begging and the monotone refusal, he doesn’t hear the low, starved snarl snaking out from his left.

 

(It’s not like he’s forgotten that it’s the end of the world. He _hasn’t_. He just … doesn’t hear it. The phone _won’t let him reach Bruce’s fucking voice_ , and he just … doesn’t hear it.)

 

(And freshly-turned zombies move _so much faster_ than older ones)

 

He barely catches a glimpse of her – _its_ – wild, bloodshot blue eyes before it slams into him, heavy and hungry and unforgiving and angry, forcing him to the wet ground. There’s a sharp, sickening crack that echoes over the growls, over the pulse pounding frantically in his ears, and his chest erupts in instant white-hot pain as something inside of him **stabs**.

Tony stretches his neck back and screams.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Eighteen days ago, Tony had been in the driver’s seat of a shitty purple Jeep and heading away from the city, lips still tingling from Bruce’s heated farewell kisses, face burning red as he’d snarked back at his mother’s kindhearted teasing about his love life from the passenger seat. His chest had been almost worryingly light, cheeks aching from a smile he hadn’t been able to quell, and despite their intended destination, both he and his mother had been giggling. Stupid, raspy little bubbles of quiet laughter that they couldn’t contain crackling up from their chests, sounding so strange and ridiculous that it had only made them both giggle more._

_He’d given her his sunglasses and mocked her taste in music, she’d stuffed one of Bruce’s homemade brownies in his face every time he’d start to win an argument, and they’d driven toward Howard and divorce papers with the soothing promise of “see you both in three days” whispering silently along with the hum of the engine._

_“I love seeing you so happy, darling,” his mother had told him with a quiet smile of her own._

_And he had been. Christ, he had been happy._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_‘Day eighteen. Bruce, I think I was wrong.’_

He’s on his side, half-submerged in a pothole full of rain, shoulders heaving in erratic effort to suck in a breath he can’t catch. His body is wrapped in an inferno of agony too intense to comprehend, blood spilling from his lips with a steady, unnatural ease, and his mind is growing numb.

Detached.

_‘I don’t think I can make it to you.’_

His phone is lodged in the mouth of the zombie that had attacked him, and it’s too distracted in clawing at its lips, pulling them away from its face like they’re nothing more than used gooey gum, to remove it to come for him again.

But he can hear more of them. The grunts, the growls, the tiny whimpers of their own dying turmoil as their feet drag hopefully in his direction. They’re all attracted by sight, they’re all attracted by living human scent, but over everything else, it’s sound that gets their initial attention, that alerts them to nearby prey.

And Tony had _screamed_.

_‘I don’t think I’ll be dead before they get to me.’_ The ground around him is tilting, but everything he sees is still in color. He coughs into another wave of white pain that makes everything disappear for a second, and more hot copper floods his mouth.

He’s drowning in his own blood, but not fast enough.

_‘Bruce, I think I’ll feel it.’_

He might not, not really. He’s already in so much pain, already going cold, how worse could any more be? Maybe he’ll just feel the pulling, the tearing; maybe the satisfied sounds of their eating will drown out the sounds of his bones snapping into uneven pieces. Maybe, if he closes his eyes, it might just be like falling.

_‘I wanted us to be happy.’_

A sudden crack, loud and harsh, whips out from behind him, and somehow his body still manages a flinch that makes his sight go gray. They’re getting closer, breaking each other in their overwhelming need for a meal. The world moves around him in a circle and he’s on a merry-go-round that’s drilling into the earth like it’s trying to hide but can’t escape that anchors that hold it captive.

He lets his eyes close.

_‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry-.’_

Another crack, just as quick and violent as the first.

And then another.

And another. And more.

He hears the wet, ripping echoes of their bones impaling their bodies from the inside, close enough that the sound pounds in his head, but muffled, like the party’s in the basement but he’s on the main floor peacefully binge-watching _Downton Abbey_. In the same house, surrounded by the same walls, but not part of the party.

Detached.

Long, vicious fingers suddenly wrap strongly around his ankle, sharply broken nails scratching with starving distress along the seam of his jeans in search for skin. His body jerks on reflex that hasn’t fallen asleep yet, erupting with its own whine of denial that ignites his throat in icy, breathless fire that –

burns him cold.

_‘Don’t be there, Bruce. I lied. I don’t want you there.’_

His lungs, thick and wet and weighted, don’t try to expand for another breath again, already accepting the fate the zombie at his leg is promising with its groans.

_‘Don’t be waiting for me.’_

His brain is slipping into a deep pillowy pocket of warm fuzz that melts over him. Distantly, he’s aware that the zombie is pulling him towards its mouth. Distantly, he’s aware that one apparently-crippled zombie won’t be able to completely devour him, leaving him infected but still capable before he dies. Distantly, he’s aware that he could turn, that he could end up stumbling around just like Howard probably is. That he’ll be just like his father. He’d sob at that realization, how fucking unfair that even in death he can’t escape the damned Stark Legacy, but-

_‘I love you. Okay?’_

he doesn’t care.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_It’s seven nights before day one, and Tony’s pressed into his mattress in his first apartment, one arm tucked behind his head and the other wrapped securely around Bruce’s shoulders. The lights from the parking lot project an abstract painting on their still-bare bedroom wall, and he casually admires it as brown curls tickle teasingly along his lips._

_“I like your mom,” Bruce confesses lowly – Tony can feel the smile against his neck, and it calls out one of his own. He hadn’t been exactly worried about introducing his mother and his boyfriend, but-_

_“I’m glad,” he admits on a rush of a breath. Bruce snorts in obvious amusement against him, **knowing** , and Tony feels his smile grow._

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

“-ony! _Tony!_ ”

 

zombies don’t speak

 

“-not bit, Bucky, I swear, just have Steve get as close-.”

 

that sounds familiar though.

 

“- any closer and they’ll overwhelm the truck-.”

 

he can’t make his eyes open

 

“-have to help me carry him-.”

 

warmth brushes carefully along his cheek

 

“-coughing up blood, he probably won’t make it to the compound, Betty-.”

 

Betty

 

he knows a Betty. Bruce’s best friend is Betty

 

“-swore you would help me -.”

 

nauseating excitement stirs somewhere in his stomach that makes him want to cry

 

“-help me get him into that damn truck or so help me God, Barnes, I will use this bat to break _your_ head open-.”

 

more warmth on him, sliding around his body

 

“On three-.”

 

he doesn’t scream this time

 

“Keep moving!”

 

the whimper drags itself through the flames in his freshly ignited body until it all just snaps, and he falls into empty dark.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_The phone rings once, twice, before the sound dies off into connected silence._

_“Miss me already?” Bruce’s voice teases in his ear, and Tony loosens._

_It’s just day one, only the first day of three, and it’s not even twelve hours into it. But he’s felt antsy since his mother had kicked him out of the driver’s seat at the rest stop, no driving to occupy his mind, and his phone had just been sitting in his hands, waiting to connect him to Bruce whenever he wanted._

_And he’d wanted._

_“Please. I missed you the second we were out of the parking lot. I just managed to hold off calling you until now,” he replies haughtily, and then pauses. “… am I pathetic?”_

_“No,” Bruce says immediately, the smile in his voice clear. “No. I wanted to call you the second you left, but I didn’t want to interrupt your time with your mom. But no, you’re not pathetic. I miss you too, baby.”_

_Tony can feel his face heating up again, sees his mother grinning out of the corner of his eye and ignores her. “Oh well, in that case, I’ll just have to call you every day, then. Can’t have you wasting away from missing me too much, I don’t want to return to Bruce-dust. What a mess.”_

_“I don’t think you’d mind having to suck me up,” Bruce returns dryly, startling Tony into a laugh that erupts so hard he bends forward, missing the way his mother’s grin becomes another soft smile as he listens to Bruce’s chuckles, too._

_As their laughter dies down, Tony hears the chiming of the computer in the background, the quiet, thoughtful hum as Bruce begins clicking on keys. “What’s up, buttercup?”_

_“Betty,” Bruce answers distractedly, still typing. “There’s been some kind of viral outbreak in a few towns in Kansas that she got called in to look at, and she’s sending me her lab results for …_ another _second opinion. There are some things not adding up and she’s having trouble getting answers from the doctors who are actually in charge-.”_

_“So she’s coming to you.” Tony loves Betty. She’s kindhearted and quick-witted and can throw a heavy right-hook to anyone who begs her for one, and she’s Bruce’s best friend. But they have a tendency to drag each other into more trouble than not, which is usually fine if Tony’s there to drag them back out of it. But he’s currently not. “That doesn’t sound like something either the great Thaddeus Ross or the government in general would be okay with.”_

_Bruce chuckles again. “No, probably not, but it’s really not that big of a deal for a small-scale outbreak, especially if I can help. They’ll get over it-.” He’s cut off as the landline – installed strictly for Bruce’s work and to hold the constant brunt of Tony’s jokes and low key hate – shrieks its obnoxious ring. “Huh. Guess she needs to actually talk.”_

_“Go,” Tony offers before his boyfriend can stumble his way around asking. “Talk, cure people, be brilliant and worthy of Sainthood (“Not Catholic, Tony”), don’t get arrested. Call you tomorrow?”_

_“Call me every day.” The phone shrieks again. “Alright. Gonna go. I love you.”_

_Tony’s face heats on its own once more. “… I love you too.”_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

zombies don’t speak

 

“-have you court martialed for abandoning your damn posts-!”

 

“-Strange is still here tell him I need him **_now_** , please-.”

 

but people do

 

“-just bring anyone in here, risking infection for all of us-.”

 

“-checked, he’s not bitten, sir-.”

 

he feels surrounded by them

 

“-on his way, Doctor Ross-.”

 

“-blood could’ve gotten in-.”

 

lights are flashing over his closed eyes, bright bursts that call to him but shy him away from the pain

 

“-turned by now-.”

 

“-need to get out of the way, Dad-.”

 

_‘Bruce, either the afterlife is a waiting room for reincarnation-’_ there’s a quick crunch, a startled yelp that he’s too gone to flinch at, _‘-or … did I make it?’_

 

“-break your hand, Betty?-”

 

“- but sure as fuck broke her old man’s nose-”

 

_‘Are you-’_ there are fingers on his face again, _‘-are you here too?’_

 

“-how to throw a punch, I’m fine, focus. Tony? Tony, you’re going into surgery, you’re going to be okay-.”

 

zombies don’t shout, but people do. and there is an eruption of it, something that sounds like his name that he tries to grab onto, but he’s being lifted again, and it hurts _so fucking much_ -

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_“Not exactly a five-star hotel, is it? I think I saw cockroaches at the check-in desk. Did you see cockroaches at the check-in desk?”_

_His mother drops her suitcase on her bed with an amused huff, slipping his sunglasses from her face and chucking them at him. Tony fumbles as he goes to catch them, and his mother smirks when they hit the bed instead of his hands._

_“It’s hardly the worst place I’ve ever stayed in,” she dismisses, looking around the hotel room appraisingly. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to how lighter she’s looked since she left his father. “And there weren’t any cockroaches. The attendant seemed to be more than a bit under the weather – he should probably be home in bed with that cough – but certainly it’s not anything to call the health department over.”_

_Tony shrugs. He’s not really concerned – the apartment he and Bruce had snagged had looked far worse when they’d first gotten it – but he’ll definitely check the sheets thoroughly for bedbugs before crawling between them. Lessons learned and all that. “… we’re not going to eat breakfast here though, right?”_

_“No, I don’t think so. I saw an IHOP down the road, and I’ve always wanted to go to one. If you want.” She tosses him a look of uncertainty that he recognizes immediately._

_“Uh, breakfast at the International House of Pancakes with my mom? I totally want. I’m getting chicken and waffles, though. You can get the pancakes, but I have to be different. It’s my thing. Don’t roll your eyes, I’m committed to it.”_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tony’s almost floating

but there’s something tangled in his hand – too rough and warm to be his phone – that’s holding him just enough to keep him from flying away

 

“-never told you, but I was really nervous to meet your mom. I didn’t think I was going to like her. Hell, I was prepared to hate her.”

 

zombies don’t speak

and he knows this wrecked-sounding voice

_‘dreaming,’_ he thinks, but his nerves stir toward the sound anyway

his limbs don’t move

 

“-ember when we first got together, and you used to jump whenever I would touch you? Not because you were scared of being hurt, but because the concept of someone just wanting to be physically affectionate was just so foreign to you. I hated her for that. Your dad I hated automatically, but your mom … All I could think of was ‘what kind of person would take power and fame and money over being his _mother?_ ’ I know, _I know_ it’s stupid and hypocritical and complete _bull_ shit – my mom stayed with my father until it actually killed her – but I hated her for not leaving Howard and taking you with her. And when she reached out to you that day, telling you she was finally leaving your dad and asking if she could meet up with you … I didn’t think she deserved another chance after what she’d put you through. When you asked if she could come visit, if I would meet her, I was going to tell her that to her face, to warn her off. I was so sure she was just using you. But I was wrong. Seeing you two together, how _happy_ you were, how happy _she_ was that you were ha-”

 

a distant wave of hurt swamps across him, but his body won’t turn on enough to shudder

he wants the voice, the weight in his hand

he doesn’t want to think –

 

he floats in the wave, waiting for it to pull him under

 

and then his hand is squeezed

_‘dreaming,_ ’ he reminds himself, even as he follows it back

 

“- almost broke the phone when it wouldn’t accept or let me call you, but Betty stopped me, because – and I’m glad she did. I couldn’t get through to you, but I got to hear your voice. I listened to every single one of your messages, baby. And I’m so sorry. I’m fucking sorry I wasn’t there with you. I wish I could h-.”

 

_‘No, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry’_

 

“-scared I wasn’t going to see you again. Should’ve been there to get you. Love you so fucking much, Tony Stark, so fucking much-.”

 

he slips

 

* * *

 

 

 

_It’s day two._

_The hotel’s fire alarm is wailing out pleas for help to a city screaming too loudly to hear it. Warning lights flash brightly in panicking strobe – hotel guests are shouting their confusion and fear as they stampede over blood and writhing, snarling bodies to reach the exits before the teeth reach them._

_Everything on the other side of the door is moving so fast._

_But Tony’s still in their room, back scrunched against the door with his knees against his chest, Howard’s Magnum wobbling in his hands. It’s the first gun he’d learned to shoot with, on the Stark’s private range with Howard himself, and Tony had brought it along solely to slide it across the table with his mother’s divorce papers as his own fare-the-fuck-unwell to his father._

_And now he’s unsteadily pointing it as his mother._

_Who’s staring right through him, her eyes pale and glassy and unblinking, lips twitching upward in want of a sneer, finger stretching and curling to grab. Unlike the hallway, their room is quiet, and he can hear the soft, uncertain growl building up from her throat._

_“Mom,” he whispers, words shaking with the sob that’s trying to push out. “Mom, please.”_

_Her body jerks at the sound of his voice, neck audibly cracking as her head tilts to the side to take him in. Her mouth opens, spit clinging to her separating teeth, and the raspy sound that leaves it isn’t the laugh Tony loves so much, but a hiss. She takes a stumbling step forward, and Tony flinches._

_“Mom, stop. Stop.”_

_She lunges with a suddenly enraged cry, and on reflex, he squeezes the trigger. The gun gives a quick roar –_

_and his mother lands at his feet, blood pouring from the center of her face, abruptly silent._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He doesn’t wake up screaming.

He doesn’t wake up with a sound at all.

But he _hears_.

There’s electricity all around him, humming its existence in different pitches – cottony through the walls, echoey and thin inside of plastic coated machinery, high-pitched and jubilant just floating through conduits in the air. There’s a steady beeping behind him, low enough not to alert the dead – bursts of hissing somewhere below him that are mechanical and not born of hunger – and –

_breathing_.

“Gonna open your eyes for me, baby?”

Tony freezes.

_‘Dreaming,’_ his mind growls at him scoldingly. _‘Dreaming, stupid. Dying. Whatever. You didn’t make it back to the apartment, he’s not here-.’_

Rough fingers trail along his temple, a warm thumb tracing under his eye. “It’s day twenty-four. You’re in the infirmary of a military compound that Thaddeus Ross would rather you not be in. You’ve got three broken ribs and a collapsed lung and there’s a drainage tube in your right side that I will kill you if you touch, but you’re going to be fine. You’re _safe_. You’re safe and I love you and I need you to open your eyes for me this time, Tony, okay? Please.”

Another hand squeezes his own, and it’s too much. He’s fucking tired, and for the first time in weeks, even if the oxygen tastes funny at the back of his throat, it doesn’t hurt to breathe. He’s warm, there’s no rain anywhere, and

It’s Bruce. Bruce is here, holding his hand, he’s made it, and it’s _too much_ -

His eyes open and are immediately flooded with tears that have nothing to do with the sterile white lights in the room he’s in.

“Oh, Tony.” Green eyes with anguish of their own stare directly into his as both hands move to brush the tears away. “Shh, honey. Shh, don’t cry.”

“ _Missed_ you. Do-.” His throat burns, and the stupid crying doesn’t stop. “Don’t … judge …”

“Never,” the other man swears vehemently, hands cradling Tony’s face a little firmer. “I love you.”

His eyes don’t burn enough to block the sight of the wetness on Bruce’s face, the way they drip into crinkles that hadn’t been there before. He looks a little thinner – there are bruises under his eyes and the lines of worry and exhaustion on his forehead that Tony reaches up to smooth. His arm is almost too heavy to steer, pulling at a pressure of _something_ inside of his chest, but Bruce catches his hand and presses his lips against the palm with a shudder that travels through Tony’s entire body.

Is this how it’s going to work?

He’s here. They’re here. They’ve made it back together.

“Love … you _too_ ,” he breathes, feels Bruce smile against his hand even as the cough of a sob hits his palm.

It’s arguably a happy ending.

Even if it’s not the one they had wanted to get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I love The Walking Dead 
> 
>  
> 
> **Additional notes:**
> 
> \- I probably could've written 50k more words of this.
> 
> \- STARK phones don't display time. Howard wanted to launch a STARK watch, and figured that would be an incentive. Howard logic.
> 
> \- Tony 'woke up' twice before the ending, but each time all he ever did was repeat "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." and never opened his eyes. 
> 
> \- Bruce listened to the first 'day seventeen' message 42 times. He'll continue to listen to it throughout Tony's recovery and settlement into the compound. Betty will eventually clue Tony in.
> 
> \- Bruce is on crutches because he was **accidentally** shot in the leg by a panicking Peter (who just watched his family die) during the initial swarm. He and Bruce bonded over loss, and Peter was very invested in helping find Tony, to the point where he caused a distraction for Ross so that Betty and Bucky and Steve could get out.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://ashnapalm.tumblr.com/)


End file.
